Commentary

•Let my people go, so that they may worship me in the wilderness. Exod. 7:16

•The Israelites complained to Moses, “It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness.” Exod. 14:12

•Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we detest this miserable food. Num. 21:5

        Near the end of seminary training, I made a listing of what had been the most important books in my theological education. As one reared in deep-water Baptist tradition, I was shocked to recognize that more than two-thirds of my “most important” guides were Roman Catholic authors.

        I now say that while my ship of faith has many sails, its mainsail is that legacy flowing from the anabaptist outburst of the 16th century (though that movement’s precursors stretch back to 14th century figures like the Czech priest Jan Hus and the Oxford theologian John Wycliffe—and even 13th century figures like St. Francis in Italy and the Beguine communities, a lay, semi-monastic order of single women (later repressed) in the Low Countries of Europe, all of whom dissented from  the church’s wealth and privilege.

        Long story short, my anchorage among the Radicals stems from two reasons: First, because of their thoroughgoing affirmation of what I call the “democratizing of access to the holy” and, correspondingly, their undermining of all notions of political sovereignty. Second, the anabaptist majority’s (there were dissenters on this score) refusal, on theological grounds, to wield the sword in defense of the state. (For more on this, see “Public reasoning and ekklesial reckoning: Commentary on the Vatican conference calling for ‘spirituality and practice of active nonviolence’ to displace church focus on just war” and "Enough of this! Toward a theology of nonviolence: Why I don’t often use the language of ‘pacifism’.”)

In Scripture, water can symbolize either deliverance or death, salvation or destruction, healing or harm, prosperity or peril, blessing or curse, assurance or threat. What follows is a selection of such texts.

§ . . . the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.  —Genesis 1:2 

§ So God created the great sea monsters and every living creature that moves, of every kind, with which the waters swarm, and every winged bird of every kind. And God saw that it was good. —Genesis 1:21